Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Once again, it's been a while!

The past few months have been a bit of a roller coaster for our family.

The 29 September saw us celebrating Emily's birthday. We went out for breakfast to start off her birthday but while out I got a phone call from Jon telling me that his brother Mike had had a heart attack at Church.

An ambulance got there quickly and the paramedics spent time getting his heart going again before taking him to the main Cardiac Unit in Brighton, about an hour from us. Sadly, Mike passed away in the early hours of Saturday, 05 October.

We're thankful that he was in Church when it happened and help was quickly on hand. We are also thankful that his sons, Ryan and Darren were able to get to the UK from Canada and South Africa respectively, that his sister Deb came down from Yorkshire and brother, Simon, flew in from America and all got to say their goodbyes.

Ryan's wife and sons flew in from Canada, Darren's girlfriend arrived from South Africa as did their mother, Merle and Mike's sister Penny. It was lovely to get the opportunity to spend time with extended family in the run up to the funeral and to see the other family members who were able to make it to the funeral from the UK.

Alice loved having young cousins to play with - seen here with Owen (thank goodness for iPads!)

Ryan's wife Shannon - love this girl and so glad we got to spend time together.

Claire and Megan

Merle with Shannon (her daughter-in-law)

Sarah (Mike's daughter-in-law), Emily and Norma

Darren and Natasha

Emily and me

Finton, Ryan & Shannon's younger son.

Despite the sadness of the occasion, there were many happy moments, lots of memories shared and Mike's life celebrated. I'm sure he'd have been pleased to see so many family members together again and enjoying each others company.

These are such great family photos, Rhona - so very bittersweet. I'm so sorry for your loss, but having experienced something similar I can really appreciate how wonderful all that family time is. Pity that families come together when someone leaves us, but so many blessings wrapped around that time too. xo

Thanks Deb. We said the same thing at the funeral because we all so enjoyed seeing each other and catching up. We hope to plan a get together "just because" soon but with everyone spread around the world it's not that easy.

So sorry for your loss. As Deb says, so bittersweet to have such lovely family photos. After my grandparents passed within a month of each other and we saw the extended family twice for sad events we decided to hold a family party and invite them all for a celebration. I have to say it was wonderful and we included my grandparents in our thoughts and out loud that day. Nice to see you back blogging xx

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. But from that came all these wonderful people in the same place at the same time, and that's something to be thankful for, isn't it? Getting older sadly means of more of these gatherings than we'd possibly like. Love to you all.